John Boyle/Asheville Watchdog Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers: Question: My question is related to the waterways around western North Carolina and their health. I live near the Swannanoa River. The past few weeks the river has been a blue/green color. It’s almost glacial looking....

Kyle Perrotti/Smoky Mountain News Last Friday wasn’t Mark Beam’s first time facing a judge at the defendant’s table in Haywood County District Court, but it seems like it may have been the last. Beam’s defense attorney, Jake Phelps, stood to address District Court Judge Monica Leslie. Phelps’ voice wavered as...

Frank Daniels IV/The (Southern Pines) Pilot Apartments under construction along the north side of Morganton Road in Southern Pines show visible progress, but it will be over a year before the development is ready for tenants. Elam Hall, business managing director for builder D.R. Horton’s Carolinas region, estimates that what...

Moss Brennan/The Watauga Democrat Nearly three months after it was severely damaged by Hurricane Helene’s flooding, the Boone Walmart has reopened with major renovations and updates. The store currently offers all general merchandise and dry grocery items. The bakery, deli, dairy and refrigerated sections will open in mid-February. Store manager...

Sarah Gleason/Wilmington StarNews For North Carolinians, a new year means a few new laws, and provisions within them, that are changing. In the Tar Heel State, bills go into effect throughout the entire year, with a few of the most recent legislative session’s most controversial legislation taking effect in early...

Greg Barnes/CityView The day Errol Jarman became Spring Lake’s interim police chief in April, his officers told him that the most violent property in town was the Plush Sports Bar, a squat, black-and-gray box with tall tinted windows near the intersection of N.C. 210 and Bragg Boulevard. Today, the property...

Santiago Ochoa/WFDD Radio Three months after Tropical Storm Helene tore through North Carolina, the federal government has committed half a billion dollars toward individual assistance — but the process of getting that relief is proving to be long and lacking for some. Max Gibbons works for Pisgah Legal Services. He’s...

Shaun Gallagher/WRAL News Cleanup at Duke University Hospital entered its second day Saturday after a burst pipe flooded the hospital’s emergency department a day earlier. The hospital sent WRAL News photos of the cleanup, which showed a gray cleaning liquid on the floor, which the hospital said was safe –...

Jessica Wakeman/NC Health News Three weeks after Helene hit western North Carolina, Marcia Whitney thought she was close to a breakthrough. The president of Verner Center for Early Learning was desperate to reopen and help their families and children return to at least some of their routines. Through her involvement...

Julian Berger/WFAE Radio Gabriel Esparza, who resides in Charlotte, will become North Carolina’s first Latino Cabinet member when he’s sworn in with Gov.-elect Josh Stein on Jan. 11. Stein selected Esparza earlier in December to lead the Department of Administration, which oversees state government operations. He spoke with WFAE about...

Parker Asmann & Henry Shuldiner/Insight Crime As a growing number of people fled their homes across Latin America and the Caribbean in 2024, migrant smuggling completed its transformation from a tertiary criminal economy to a major revenue stream for some of the region’s most powerful organized crime groups. This criminal...

Peter Castagno/Port City Daily A local brewery and its owner concluded a year-long defamation lawsuit triggered by a viral social media post after its author posted a public apology recanting her allegations. Two other women involved in the case expressed relief the suit has ended but are standing by their...

Jimmy Potts/The (Waynesville) Mountaineer The Town of Canton received a clean bill of financial health during its most recent audit, but it is far from out of the proverbial financial weeds due to a myriad of issues largely beyond its control. That was the word from Sheila Gahagan, a certified...

Paul B. Johnson/High Point Enterprise Piedmont Triad International Airport leaders hope that passenger counts in 2025 ascend to levels not seen since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. nearly five years ago. Airlines serving PTIA have steadily built up passenger yields since the pandemic throttled aviation traffic...

Hannah McLeod/Smoky Mountain News Jackson Community School — Jackson County’s alternative learning center — is the most expensive school in the district per pupil, and now the Board of Education is considering whether it should invest more money into the aging building or relocate the small student population into a...